Marc Barnes brings us up to date on opposition to the HHS mandate

As I've said before, I oppose the HHS mandate, because I believe it is a small step in the growing tendency to be tired of all this democracy and liberty garbage.  I've also been honest that my sympathies for the American Church leadership, that almost to a man supported Obama's healthcare overhaul as long as he didn't screw the Catholic Church, runs somewhat shallow.  After all, there were other aspects of the mandate that seemed to threaten individual liberties, and the same Bishops ballyhooing about their opposition to the HHS mandate thought nothing about throwing those other concerns under the bus (forgive me if I'm wrong in this generalization, but I've yet to have anyone point me to evidence to the contrary).

Still, I do oppose the principles behind the HHS mandate.  And I see it as a small but crucial step in that movement toward a post-democratic American nation.  Marc Barnes does a fine job explaining to the ill-informed just why the Catholic Church is so ticked off about the whole mandate design.

Nonetheless, he misses one crucial point.  It's a point I notice is missing on several Catholic blogs that are invested in these debates.  There seems to be a general sympathy toward the more progressive in many Catholic circles   Not that they all throw in with abortion rights or gay marriage or whatever, but their rage, their contempt, their anger, their righteous indignation seems only reserved for the traditionalist,  the Protestant Conservative, the Religious Right, and the issues that at times defined those conservative American movements.  Therefore, there is a tendency in some Catholic blogs to turn a more critical eye toward the arguments of the American Conservative than the American Progressive.  Oh, they oppose gay marriage here or abortion there, but they don't unpack, they don't micro-analyze every jot and tittle of a progressive mandate the way they might a more conservative agenda.

Thus, it appears that many Catholic bloggers have missed the fact that arguing against the HHS mandate by way of the First Amendment is an exercise in futility.  Why?  Because American progressives have, in many cases, rewritten the First Amendment, thanks largely in part to the Separation of Church and State emphasis that has been placed on it over the decades.  To many, Separation of Church and State was the end all to the Amendment,  the reason it existed.  It was not a means to the end, a principle upon which religious liberty could be achieved.  It was the reason the Amendment was written.

It didn't take long for that to go its logical ways, with the last decade or so witnessing a growing tendency among Progressives to add to the Amendment's purposes, whether it be to keep people with the wrong religion out of government, or to mandate a clear and obvious truth.  As Barry Lynn, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State explains, it's not a case of legislating morality or advancing religious values, it's mandating Truth.  To embrace a particular view of religion, to advance gay marriage, to champion abortion rights or free contraceptives, therefore, are not moral views or values, they are Truth.  And not one person in the world opposes governments mandating Truth.

So as much as I enjoyed  and appreciated, Mr. Barnes' take on the issue, I couldn't help but know it would fall on deaf ears, especially if those ears believe that the First Amendment exists to ensure that Truth (read: Progressive Values) becomes the law of the land, and not some archaic notion that it existed to ensure the right to practice religion freely.